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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24058519">Something blue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsfizzle/pseuds/mrsfizzle'>mrsfizzle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:22:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24058519</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsfizzle/pseuds/mrsfizzle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Begins at the end of 7x5, Angels Take Manhattan. The Doctor is despondent after the loss of Amy and Rory, and the TARDIS looks after him in her own way.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eleventh Doctor &amp; The Doctor's TARDIS, Eleventh Doctor/River Song</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Loss</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sexy recognized the look on her Doctor's face as soon as he stepped back inside. She knew it was coming; she'd known for awhile. No human lasted long traveling with her Doctor, and Amy and Rory had lasted longer than most.</p><p>This would be an especially bad loss. This regeneration of her Doctor was more sensitive than the last few. Oh, he was more whimsical, put on a happier face, and probably showed more gentleness and kindness, especially to children. But it was all because he was fragile, coping with the dark and traumatic secrets in his past. Sexy was the only one who saw who he was when that mask came off. River might have known his true name, but only Sexy knew his true face.</p><p>And as always, Sexy would be the one to pick up the pieces. What he always forgot after losing a human was that he still always, always still needed a human, no matter how much it would hurt to say good bye.</p><p>The recovery would be especially difficult on her this time. She was still exhausted and hurting from all of the paradoxes she'd encountered recently (if "recently" was the right term—always hard to tell when it came to time travel). Usually, her doctor took extra good care of her when she was damaged, but she was sure he wouldn't think to do so this time.</p><p>In any case, she was sure that with or without his intervention, her damages would have repaired themselves long before his healing was finished. It was her turn to be the strong one for him.</p><p>River took over Sexy's controls for a little while while the Doctor sat motionless in a corner, clearly verging tears. Sexy knew that face. It would be awhile before she would see his brilliant, glowing smile again.</p><p>"Okay," River said. "This book I've got to write. Melody Malone. I presume I send it to Amy to get it published?"</p><p>"Yes . . . yes." The Doctor rubbed at his eyebrows, wincing.</p><p>"I'll tell her to write an afterword. For you. Maybe you'll listen to her."</p><p>There was a long pause, then The Doctor said, "The last page." He shot up and ran away from Sexy, leaving River behind with her.</p><p>Sexy was used to this—to only catching snapshots of his adventures and filling in the missing pieces herself. And even if she didn't understand exactly what had happened, she knew River had found something the Doctor desperately needed and given it to him. River was the first companion the Doctor had had in awhile to stick with him over a long enough range of time to learn exactly what to do with him during these times.</p><p>River was also the first human companion who knew how to take care of Sexy better than the Doctor himself. "Let's have a look at you, shall we?" River stepped down into the mess of circuitry beneath the glass floors of the control room.</p><p>The Doctor had spent years learning the ins and outs of TARDIS matrices and electronics. River had learned it all in a day. Sexy had taught her, and today she was more glad than ever that she had. It took River only minutes to identify the worst of the damage and replace the broken components. Immediately, Sexy could feel cool relief spreading all throughout her dimensions.</p><p>"There you go," River said. "How is that?"</p><p>Sexy hummed contentedly, and River made her way back up to the control panel.</p><p>"You'll look after him, won't you, old girl?" She patted her hand over the side of the center console. "He's down a bit of regeneration energy, you know."</p><p>That made Sexy's circuits lurch a bit. Regeneration energy was limited, and he was on his last body. He usually only used his regeneration energy if he was injured pretty badly.</p><p>"Don't worry, he wasn't hurt. I was. Broken wrist. I would have been fine, but he had to go in and heal me anyway. He may have lost ten years of his life with that trick." She stepped back and crossed her arms, shaking her head. "But that's the Doctor, isn't it?"</p><p>Sexy wished she could smile.</p>
<hr/><p>The Doctor returned to his corner after dropping off River. He set the controls on auto, so that Sexy could take the wheel. And she did.</p><p>She'd overheard him telling Amy that he could never take the TARDIS back to New York 1938, so she didn't try to go there. Instead, she tried for New York 1939. A year would have passed for Amy, but that wasn't a problem for the Doctor. A single year of aging was usually unnoticeable in human adults.</p><p>She couldn't materialize.</p><p>She tried New Jersey 1938. Then New Jersey 1939. No luck. She tried every combination she could think of, but only resulted in rattling the control room for long enough that her Doctor looked up from his sulking and gave the center console a quizzical expression, as well as re-damaging all of the same components that River had just repaired.</p><p>So that confirmed what Sexy should have known to begin with. It wasn't New York 1938 that her Doctor couldn't visit. It was Amy herself. Her timeline was too scrambled with his.</p><p>Of course, Sexy knew there was more to it than that, anyway. She'd watched the Ponds grow more and more conflicted as years passed, the impossibility of living both a normal human life and TARDIS life, the ache of trying to choose. And at last, Amy had chosen. Sexy shouldn't take that away from her, but looking at her Doctor's sullen expression, she knew she would do anything she could to bring his smile back. <em>Anything</em>.</p><p>This, though, this was something she couldn't give him.</p><p>So she took him to see the universe. She began with safe places, nearby places where he'd been and resolved challenges. The moon landing—that was always one of his favorites. Ancient Rome, years and years before Mount Vesuvius would erupt. Venice, before the vampires. Museums where he'd left his mark, happy memories.</p><p>Most of his favorites were on Earth—and she always landed on Saturdays—but she stopped by other planets, too. Places where he could see galaxies in all their glory, even places he'd never been. Plant and animal life he'd never seen. Views of stars he'd only glimpsed, at angles he'd never admired. She took him to planets with beautiful natural weathering and structures, but no intelligent life, so there could be no conflict.</p><p>Every time, she showed the surroundings to him on the screen. And every time, he glanced up, gave her a half smile, and looked back at his shoes.</p><p>Maybe he didn't need a break. Maybe what he needed was motivation.</p><p>She took him to war-torn planets and countries. Showed him crying children in dystopian societies. She stayed away from fixed points, instead choosing moments where his brilliance could make a difference, like she usually did. He always had a harder time without a companion, but anything was better than nothing.</p><p>He stopped looking up at the screen after the first stop, and instead buried his hair in his hands.</p><p>She tried one more tactic—she stopped by Sarah Jane Smith's house. But her timing was a little off—another family exited of the house just as the TARDIS materialized. Evidently, Sarah Jane was long dead.</p><p>Her Doctor could sense that they'd stopped, and looked up at the screen. She tried to turn it off and leave this place, but it was too late. He'd seen it. He let out a cry of distress, stood from his corner, and turned off the screen. Then he slammed his hand down on the console.</p><p>She hated it when he hit her. It didn't damage her physically, but it still hurt.</p><p>Finally, Sexy didn't know what else to do, so she parked them on top of a cloud over Victorian England. She was pretty sure Vastra, Jenny, and Strax lived there. Maybe they'd call him.</p><p>In the meantime, she'd have to do the best she could to take care of him while he stayed inside.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Grief</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sexy was used to her Doctor remaining awake for long stretches. Time Lords didn't need to sleep as much as humans did, so even when he had companions aboard the TARDIS, he would often visit favorite destinations while they slept to keep himself occupied. This regeneration did so quite a bit more than the past ones. But she'd never seen him go this long.</p><p>Twenty-four hours. Forty-eight hours. Seventy-two.</p><p>Her Doctor just sat in his corner, staring. Never moving, except every few hours on the first day to go relieve himself, but eventually he didn't even do that. Sexy had never known as much as she wanted to about time lord or human biology, but she knew that couldn't be good for him.</p><p>Sexy knew what River would do, if she knew about this. It was one thing when River needed the Doctor to sleep because he was too energetic, and she had her own means of making that happen—she was his wife, after all, and Sexy had witnessed far more than she'd ever wanted to.</p><p>But it was different when River caught him sitting awake and alert, haunted by his past. On those days, River would sit with him and put an arm around him, tousling his hair and rubbing his back, maybe whispering endearments. Slowly, he would succumb to the soothing comfort, until he was malleable enough in her hands that she could pull his head down to rest on her shoulder, and his eyes would fall closed.</p><p>For what must have been the millionth time, Sexy wished she were corporeal. She longed to hold him gently until he slept in her arms.</p><p>Either way, she couldn't let him go on like this. She analyzed his neurotransmitters and generated an aerosol that would put him to sleep, filling the control room with the odorless chemical. Within a couple of minutes, his eyelids sunk further with each blink—any minute now, he'd be forced to go find his bedroom and sleep.</p><p>He didn't. Eventually, he just laid on his side in the corner and dozed.</p><hr/><p>He slept for longer than Sexy had ever seen him sleep at a stretch. Twenty-two hours. And when he finally did awaken, he still didn't move.</p><p>For days and days and days.</p><p>River would never put up with that. She'd sympathize for a little while, but she wouldn't let him sit in place for days. Eventually, she'd scold him, maybe even slap him if he stood up and started to mouth off and she decided he needed it. Then he'd whirl around and hold his face, rub away the sting, and he'd finally talk to her. They would argue, and maybe he'd even storm away, but at least he'd be moving, and later, he would thank her. Because River always knew what he needed.</p><p>Sexy couldn't scold him without a voice, but she could make him move. She started by gently rocking the control room. He noticed—he had to—but he didn't react. Then she played with the gravity in the room around the edges, forcing him to get up and walk to the control panel.</p><p>He just stood there. He almost looked like he was too weak to do anything else—not just emotionally, but physically as well. But he didn't try, either.</p><p>In frustration, she gave the entire control room a quick, hard jolt.</p><p>A little too hard.</p><p>Her Doctor stumbled, and his hands flew forward to break his fall, but landed on the control panel, slamming against some of the sharper, rougher controls.</p><p><em>No! No no no</em> . . . What had she done?</p><p>"Thanks, dear!" Sarcasm dripped from his voice as he looked down at a deep gash in his left palm.</p><p>Her desire for physical form peaked again. She wanted to apologize, to grovel, to cry. If nothing else, to tend to his hand—she wasn't sure he would do that for himself.</p><p>There were medical supplies in one of her many rooms, so she manipulated the matrix a little to bring the kit into the control room, and opened a tiny door on the control panel to reveal them to him.</p><p>Her Doctor glared for a long, long time, still clutching his left hand with his right.</p><p>Then he groaned and picked up the kit. Sexy's circuitry ran a little more smoothly—she didn't even realize it had stalled.</p><p>He cleaned it out with a disinfectant wipe, wincing and gasping all the while, then he wrapped up his whole hand in a bandage. "Happy?" He shoved the kit back into the compartment.</p><p>She swapped it out with a cold pack.</p><p>He sighed. "Thanks, dear," he said softly, and took the cold pack, sighing as he pressed it into his palm.</p><p>Sexy hummed—maybe this was a start—but her Doctor went right back to his corner.</p><hr/><p>After awhile, Sexy had to resist the urge to jolt him again. She really didn't want to hurt him, but he couldn't just stay there. He hadn't even eaten.</p><p>In her attempts to get her Doctor to move, Sexy had entirely forgotten about eating. Time lords could go a lot longer without than humans, but he still needed to—that was part of why he looked so weak. On those occasions when he stood, his muscles trembled so violently she was afraid he was going to fall even without her jolting the control room. In fact, she started manipulating gravity tiny amounts to <em>keep</em> him from falling.</p><p>He needed to eat.</p><p>Producing food was hard for her—she could technically make edible compounds, even shape them the way he was used to seeing them, but time lords and humans alike had very specified tastes that she couldn't quite match. She didn't want to make him feel sick. And she could have simply brought him food from one of the supply rooms, but if she kept doing that, he might never leave the control room. She'd save that for emergencies.</p><p>If the hunger pains weren't enough to get him to walk over there . . . she'd just have to entice him. Odor chemicals were easier than whole foods. She filled the control room with the smell of fish fingers and custard.</p><p>He stood and left the control room. For a moment she thought he was going to one of her supply rooms, but he didn't—he went to find a toilet, into which he vomited.</p><p>Sexy had no idea how that was even possible. There couldn't possibly be anything in his stomach. When he flushed away the sick, though, she realized there was no sick to flush away—he'd just been gagging and retching dry.</p><p>River wouldn't have let him do this. If it came to it, she would have force fed him, or fed him intravenously.</p><p>That, Sexy could do. It wouldn't have to be to his taste, it would just have to match his need for nutrients. She generated a compound quickly and easily, and put it into a needle, which she pushed out of the console so he could see it</p><p>Her Doctor stepped back. "What are you doing?"</p><p>Sexy ground her brakes in a way that she hoped sounded intimidating enough to get her message across.</p><p>"Are you threatening me?"</p><p>She wouldn't have used that word, but it didn't matter. She pushed the needle out a little further. With a little extra manipulation, she might be able to materialize a syringe and aim it at him, if he tried to run. She didn't want to hurt him, though, so she'd save that for a worst case scenario.</p><p>"Fine. Fine!" He stormed away to a supply room and picked up an apple. "Happy?"</p><p><em>No</em>. She wasn't happy. Because he wasn't happy, and she could never be happy when he wasn't. Besides, his grieving wasn't following its usual pattern. This regeneration, especially, tended to mask his pain rather than wallowing in it. Some nights, after his companions had gone to sleep or back to their homes, he cracked, and the pain came spilling out. He smashed and destroyed things, shouted and cried. His outbursts always ended with him sobbing into the central console until he fell asleep on the glass floor and woke up, red-eyed and stiff but ready to travel again.</p><p>It was so easy for Sexy to support him through that—all she had to do was be there. This was different. Her Doctor didn't usually deflate and give up. That wasn't him. She didn't know what to do for him.</p><p>Her Doctor tossed the apple core into a disposal slot in the store room, and walked back to the control room. Sexy wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. This was killing her—she could feel the tension in her components.</p><p>But to her surprise, her Doctor didn't return to his corner. He walked straight to the center console and began to gently run his hands along the controls</p><p>"This must be hurting you," he whispered. "I'm sorry, dear. And thank you."</p><p>Cool relief spread through her, as tangible as when River had repaired her circuitry.</p><p>"You were made to travel, and so was I. You and I, we were made for each other. I bet sometimes, you wish we weren't."</p><p><em>No</em>. Never. Not in a million universe lifetimes.</p><p>"But Amy's right—she's always right. Was always right. I can't travel alone. And I can't take River all the time, because she's right—one psychopath per TARDIS."</p><p>Sexy didn't understand that, but she supposed she didn't have to.</p><p>"I know you still want to travel. But I can't go through this. Not again. And it's not just about me. I can't do this to another human. And no matter how hard I try, or how many promises I make, this always happens. I can't travel without a companion, and it's selfish and wrong for me to take one."</p><p>Sexy had another idea of what selfish and wrong meant—any human he travelled with took the risk willingly, and most were glad they had in the end. Besides, her Doctor saved so many more people than he harmed by having a companion. But Sexy couldn't argue with him. Physically couldn't.</p><p>He sighed, as though he had heard her case. "I need time."</p><p><em>Time</em>. She could give him time. And space. All of time and space, all of it—wasn't that what she had always been giving him, since the day she stole him?</p><p>But no. Even she knew that wasn't what he meant.</p><p>"I'll talk to Vastra and Jenny. Okay, dear?"</p><p>That was a good start. They didn't travel, but they would be kind and gentle to him without judging him. They could help him in ways that Sexy couldn't, and eventually they'd try to encourage him to run again.</p><p>He looked at the screen. "It's nighttime over Victorian London. I'm going to sleep for awhile. Wake me when it's morning out there, won't you, dear?"</p><p>She didn't have to be able to speak. She always woke him when he needed it, just like she'd give him anything and everything else he needed. And for as long as they both lived, she always would.</p><p>"Good night." His dimples deepened as he gave one last smile back toward the console. "You sexy thing."</p><p>
  <em>The End</em>
</p>
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